Rosso del Contadino 9 2011

Grape variety: Nerello Mascalese, Nerello Cappuccio, Alicante Bouschet, Minella, Uva Francesca

Please note that Frank Cornelissen has had an amazing development process since deciding at the beginning of the Millennium, as an autodidact, to begin making wines on Etna.

The learning process has taken the fortunate one of us, who have known Frank since almost the beginning, through a series of very exciting transitions. These transitions have begun with wine that was raw, learning process, sometimes with wine going into the bottle in a very unstable state, wine with high volatility, with part of the sediment, and more. These wines are now collectors items, and this is not memorabilia for the sake of emotional “aficionado” level, this is again due to a very magical, very amazing and scientifically exciting process that wines that we analyse in the beginning has perhaps less stable, more volatile, maybe with brett, can and often will in time if they come from excellent grapes great terroir, turn into something more stable. This is what I am seeing in the older vintages from Frank, and that is the reason why we are making these wines available to those of you who are as fascinated as us, in trying some of the older vintages that have had time in the bottle.

Please when you receive these bottles, take very good care of them: we will send these bottles to you in Nakpack, in order to secure that there are not violent temperature swings on the bottle, which would damage these delicate wines, and upon received I recommend that strongly, that you keep these wines for several weeks vertical, on their feet, so that the wines have time in a refrigerated medium, in a cool medium, to settle again with any and all fermentation that may have been reactivated during shipping.

After that, when you taste the wines, they will show themselves a lot more.

And the final recommendation: these are not wines that were intended as  some of the “new wave Pet-nats”, to be shaken and stirred, in order to give a great dramatic effect in the glass, with all of the leeds and sediment swimming around in your glass. So please when you open the bottle, either decant the wine very delicately, or pour it delicately, so that the sediment is your last half glass that you drink.